Live coverage: SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 moved to launch pad for hotfire test

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the heaviest payload ever launched by SpaceX took off Monday morning from Cape Canaveral with 60 satellites for then company’s Starlink broadband network.

A decade in the making, the core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket rolled into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center Thursday to join up with twin solid rocket boosters and an Orion capsule for an unpiloted test flight around the moon.

Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries has purchased a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch in 2017 with a mash-up of satellites in the first such commercial arrangement for a rideshare mission on a U.S. launcher, the company announced Wednesday.